USDA inspectors and industry watchdogs say staff shortages threaten safety of US meat supply (Waxahachie Daily Light) LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sometimes, government inspectors responsible for examining slaughterhouse cattle for mad cow disease and other ills are so short-staffed that they find themselves peering down from catwalks at hundreds of animals at once, looking for such telltale signs as droopy ears, stumbling gait and facial paralysis. [News Source]

Meat roulette. Nauseating as it was, last week's record-setting beef recall and the apparent feeding of meat from crippled "downer" cattle to our nation's children and others should come as little surprise. [News Source]

Is farmed fish the new battery chicken? You had better get used to eating fish from cages. By 2010, half of all the fish and sea-vegetables the world eats will be farmed, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. [News Source]

Where’s the beef … going? A week ago, the Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall on record: 143''million pounds from the Westland/Hallmark company near Los Angeles. [News Source]

Safety in numbers. The disgusting tale of inadequate U.S. beef inspection has a familiar ring to us in the Carolinas. [News Source]

Slaughterhouse case should spur government investigation. The animal abuse alone is enough to make the casual observer cringe. [News Source]

Strengthen, simplify US food inspection. The fact that none of the 140 million pounds of ground beef recalled last week wound up in the Sheboygan Area School District's lunch program is only a small consolation. [News Source]

Taking no chances. In Palisades School District, officials have decided to throw out 1,200 pounds of it worth about $1,300 as a precaution in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation's history. [News Source]

Feds need to beef up USDA inspections. Try to convince Americans that there's "no food safety issue" in the recall of 143 million pounds of ground beef. That's what USDA is saying: It's safe; law is forcing us to destroy it. [News Source]

Mad cows, bad enforcement. Assurances that the nation's largest beef recall is merely a precaution are small comfort in Washington state. [News Source]